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Egg Omelet

A simple egg omelet made with eggs, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Egg Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them well.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the beaten eggs into the skillet.

  2. Cook until the edges start to set, then gently lift the edges with a spatula.

  3. Fold the omelet in half and cook for another minute until fully set.

  4. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a tender structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the eggs from sticking and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until the edges start to set, then lift the edges. Egg proteins set quickly over medium heat. Lifting the set edges lets the still-liquid egg flow underneath, giving even cooking and a tender result rather than a tough, overcooked omelette.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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